Chapter 4: Provoking The Beast
1096 Words
CHAPTER 4: Provoking The Beast
Leota's POV
“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” Jason snapped with his voice echoing across the empty rink.
I jumped, dragged out of my thoughts so fast it almost hurt, and my fingers tightened on my notebook.
“What?” I asked dumbly with my eyes refocusing on the frustrated and handsome devil in front of me.
He glared at me with a tight jaw.
“I’ve been talking for five minutes about tactics and resilience. Why Laycon College beats every other team, and you’re standing there like a statue!” He almost screamed the words with the most repulsive disgust he could think of.
“I was…” I hesitated. How could I explain I’d been thinking about the sketch I found last night? About the nightmare I couldn’t remember with only the screams and the blood? And the face I drew long before I even met him? I looked down at the ice, suddenly cold despite the heater humming near the benches.
“You were what?” he barked. “Daydreaming? You think I don’t have better things to do than play tour guide?”
“I didn’t ask to be here,” I shot back with heat rushing to my cheeks. “This wasn’t my idea.”
He laughed bitterly, but there was absolutely no humor in it.
“Great. We both hate this.”
He started pacing, dragging a hand through his hair, and his skates squeaked against the rink floor.
“I hate this, okay? I hate wasting time with someone who doesn’t care and I could be practicing, I could be doing literally anything else.”
I stayed quiet, letting his words roll off, and my chest tightened, but not from his anger, though. It was from something else, something deeper and a strange and uneasy feeling that had settled on me since I met this handsomely strange hockey player.
“What’s your story?” I asked suddenly.
He stopped mid-step.
“What?”
“Your story,” I said, lifting my chin. “Not about hockey. About you.”
His eyebrows shot up, and then his mouth curved into a hard line.
“I’m trying to talk to you, and you’re too stupid to listen, and now you want my life story?”
“I’m not stupid.” My voice shook, but I didn’t back down. “I meant… you. There’s something about you. Something weird.”
For a split second, something flickered in his eyes, and it was not the usual anger and not exactly fear, but then it vanished and was buried under a scowl.
He thought he was fast, but I had seen it. I was certain of what I saw, and I knew clearly that I had struck a nerve back there!
“This isn’t a personal interview,” he said roughly. “You’re here to write about the team.”
“I don’t care about the team.” My own voice surprised me and was louder than I meant. “I care about why you feel… off.”
He stared at me with his chest rising and falling faster, and suddenly the atmosphere in the hockey rink became charged.
“You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them.
Jason’s whole body went rigid, and he blinked, then laughed sharply and forcefully.
“That’s bullshit,” he said. “Werewolves are fairy tales.”
“You’re lying,” I said quietly.
His shoulders stiffened.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
We stood there, silent except for the low hum of the rink lights, and my heart pounded so hard I could hear it myself.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the sheet I’d torn from my old jotter, and then I unfolded it and held it out.
His eyes dropped to the paper, and for a second, his face drained of color.
“I drew this in Lake Mississippi,” I said with my voice shaking. “Weeks before I even came here. I woke up from a nightmare… I don’t remember everything, just screaming and blood… and I drew this. That’s you.”
On the page, his face stared back at him but it wasn’t just his face. Fangs curved over his lip, and his eyes were wide with his pupils stretched thin and golden like those of a wolf's.
Jason looked from the drawing to me, and then he opened his mouth, closed it, and then laughed again, but harsher this time.
“You expect me to believe you didn’t draw that yesterday? That you didn’t fake a date to mess with me?”
“You really think I’d make this up?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said flatly, but his voice was too quick and way too tight to believe.
“Then explain it,” I said, holding the paper out closer. “Explain why I dreamed of you before I met you.”
He didn’t take the drawing, and his hands curled into fists at his sides.
I stepped forward with my heart racing.
“What does it mean, Jason?”
“Stop,” he said sharply.
“No,” I said. “Not until you tell me.”
His eyes burned into mine.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re lying again.”
“Drop it, Leota.”
“Then why do I see things when I touch you?” I demanded.
His face flickered with a shadow of shock.
“What?”
I grabbed his hand before I could think twice, and the moment our skin met, my head filled with images.
I saw a wolf’s jaws snapping and teeth slick with blood and claws tearing through flesh. I heard A furious growl vibrating through the trees, and somewhere, someone was screaming.
I gasped and yanked back, nearly stumbling on the ice.
Jason’s chest heaved, and he was breathing like he’d run miles. His hand trembled where I’d held it, and for a moment, I thought he might attack me.
Then I saw his eyes and they weren’t the usual color anymore.
Golden light filled them, and his pupils were now like thin slits, like a wolf’s.
I froze with the sketch slipping from my fingers and drifting onto the ice.
“Jason…” My voice was barely a whisper.
He didn’t answer and his gaze locked on me silently, and for a moment, I thought I saw the hint of fangs behind his lips…
- Writer
